Deadline: A blowtorch, a coat hanger and an X-rated scar

Life in the criminal world can leave its mark on you in more ways than one. Just ask the crook walking around with large phallic symbol branded on his skin.

The criminal world can leave it’s mark on crooks, in more ways than one.

Mark Buttler and Andrew Rule with the latest crime buzz.

Phallic felons

Trying to navigate the criminal scene unscathed is tough stuff. Even worse than the constant risk of police handcuffs is the constant danger from fellow outlaws.

We hear of one such case in which a Melbourne crook fell foul of his brethren and they decided to remind him what can happen to those who step out of line.

Deadline is reliably informed the bad guys grabbed a coat hanger, twisted it into a crude shape and proceeded to heat it up.

The upshot is that the unfortunate victim now has a penis-shaped burn on his skin.

Of course, he is not the first crook to find himself the worse for wear when a relationship fractures.

If he needs medical attention, maybe he should consider former radio doc “Dr Feelgood”, whose medical degree is in her real name — Dr Cockburn.

Although a few lucky ones manage to leave bikie gangs intact, others find themselves paying a heavy price.

A court sketch of unwanted Hells Angel, Terrence Tognolini. Picture: Schneider Simon

There are plenty of stories of club tattoos being removed with blowtorches and Harleys being commandeered as an exit fee.

Even outlaw motorcycle gangs have standards, which was bad news for Terrence Tognolini when his Hells Angels clubmates heard of his trick of giving drugs to young girls then sexually abusing them.

Tognolini was taken to the gang’s Nomads clubhouse in Thomastown and given a fearful hiding then allegedly carted out in a wheelbarrow and dumped in the street.

A rider who left the Bandidos many years ago had a visit from three former comrades who shoved a gun in his mouth, cut his ear with a knife and bashed him over the head with a guitar.

They then stole his bikes. Arguably not as bad as being given a penis-shaped branding.

Demonstration of depravity

Some of the “peace protesters” outside the Land Forces military expo at Jeff’s Shed last week stood out for all the wrong reasons.

They allegedly scattered marbles to upset the police horses’ footing and threw human waste, horse manure and rocks at the cops. But Deadline has been told the worst of the rabble also used another below-the-belt tactic.

The word is that some of them, as they faced off with the law, yelled taunts about the deaths of police members from the recent past.

You’d have to wonder what the legitimate protesters thought of such foul behaviour — and also what might happen to anyone who tried that in some of the places they chant about, where consequences are plenty more severe than pepper spray.

A police horse is forced to deal with the foul behaviour of a protester. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Police horses stay calm amid the chaos of anti-Israel protests. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

For older police, the heated confrontation brought back memories of demonstrations past, notably one long-running anti-mining saga in St Kilda Rd in the late 1990s.

Seeing the current mob’s efforts to frighten police horses reminded one former mounted copper of a fearsome ex-racehorse who enjoyed his new line of work. His official name was Star Video, a tough galloper who’d won the top-class Sandown Guineas, before being “retired” early because he savaged other horses in races.

Star Video was an entire, as in a stallion, until he was belatedly gelded in an effort to make him less aggressive. But it seems that the unkindest cut of all didn’t make him amenable to protesters trying to bash him or spook him.

The police could’ve used the late Star Video — a one-horse riot squad, in the year of protests 2024. Picture: Jake Nowakowski

Under his usual rider, noted horseman Leigh Kirby, Star Video would take the fight right up to the protesters, totally fearless and inclined to bite and stomp.

One of Kirby’s mountie mates recalls that a police horse was generally rated as being worth 18 foot police in a riot. But Star Video was a one-horse anti-riot squad.

“He was a real warhorse who’d walk through fire if you wanted him to,” says our source.

“He was fearless, he was fast, he went straight and he’d bite. When members of the public came up to pat the horses we’d always say ‘Not this one’.”

All this for little old me?

The anti-war weapons demonstration and the mass police turnout came as a shock to one (alleged) crazed car thief who sped into a dead end full of hundreds of cops near Jeff’s shed early on Wednesday after allegedly staging a string of home invasions overnight.

He could hardly believe his eyes, especially after police stopped the car and dragged him out of it. This small cameo descended into farce when various police started to argue about who should have to process the (alleged) idiot, those pursuing him or those on riot duty.

Bold AF

Could the person or people who spray Melbourne with Pam the Bird graffiti actually be trying to blend in with the local environment?

Deadline noticed last week a Pam on the wall next to AF Automotive site on Napier St, Footscray.

Its colours seemed to closely match those of AF’s sign-writing, done in the local red, white and blue Bulldog colours.

“Someone had to do it” was scrawled under the Pam.

Pam the Bird had the decency to blend into the AF Automotive building on Napier St in Footscray.

Out of juice

There were some frustrated people after a car “broke down” on a big freeway on-ramp recently.

Turns out the driver was a well-off former football champ who’d run out of fuel.

Further information suggests that before coming to a stop, he had driven past plenty of service stations advertising petrol at prices which were a bit high for his liking so he pressed on to look for a better deal.

Oops.

Now he knows what “a false economy” is.

Ricky fires up

Former top AFL agent Ricky Nixon blew up over a brutal attack on his home turf this week.

Nixon hit the socials in anger after someone stabbed a woman at a Bay St, Port Melbourne tobacconist, leaving her in a serious condition in hospital.

“This was the greatest dog act ever when one of the most beautiful loving 60yo ladies I’ve ever met gets stabbed this morning,” Nixon wrote.

“As a wise man said to me recently, Australia is new USA and within five years we’ll need a gun in our pocket to walk down the street.”